A town
centre characterisation project for hastings developed a simple method
of evaluating buildings in historic areas in relation to a thorough
audit.

The
church at 10 Pelham Crescent, Hastings

that appeal
decisions will have regard to the authority's justification for
designation of a particular conservation area, is that lacking adequate
justification or design guidance severely limits any resistance to an
application on conservation or design grounds, especially when the
application carries the caché of regeneration.

Consider the
conservation policies in a typical local plan. They are mostly variants
on the theme that new buildings or changes to existing ones must be of
high quality, preserve or enhance character, be 'in keeping', 'reflect
local styles', 'be in scale' or just 'look right' (honest, one
authority's policy really does say that). With such policies it is a
wonder that anything of architectural distinction ever gets completed,
and little wonder that regeneration and conservation are so often seen
as opposites, within authorities and without.

Hastings
Borough Council, with English Heritage and the South East Economic
Development Agency (SEEDA) commissioned a team assembled by
Conservation Architecture & Planning to undertake a
characterisation of Hastings town centre, with several existing conservation areas
as well as identified 'character areas' all lacking
appraisal and requiring reconciliation, new designation or redefinition
- in short, a wide-ranging critical review of the town's conservation
map. Team members were Jack Warshaw (director/editor-in-chief); Sue
Beech (project leader/appraiser); Rob Cowan (urban design); and Oliver
Bradbury (historian).

The urgency
of the project was underscored by SEEDA's designation of Hastings as a
gateway regeneration project. Key areas of the town for which new
'flagship' development proposals were in progress included the station
area and a stretch of seafront, including the foreground of Pelham
Crescent, Hastings' famous early 19th-century set piece. A
well-publicised competition for that site saw Lord Foster emerge with
the winning scheme. But would it meet conservation criteria?

Without any
formally adopted basis on which the borough council could guide or
judge these and other development proposals, the impact on the
character of the town of large-scale developments, exaggerated by its
bowl-shaped topography, could be irreconcilable. Lack of clearly
defined values or controls in relation to existing buildings could also
threaten many of them with replacement or drastic change in the name of
regeneration. The council needed powerful but easy-to-use weaponry;
SEEDA needed a positive climate of regeneration; and English Heritage
needed a foundation for future townscape heritage initiative (THI) or
other funding in the service of Hastings' historic town status.

The client
team was anxious that all parties should

Our historic
cities and towns, and the people who live in, them are under threat,
not just from terrorist attack, or even from the increased personal
surveillance that is bound to follow, but from the seemingly
irresistible force of... regeneration - the current New Labour,
politically correct term for large-scale redevelopment.

Nowhere are
the growing effects more evident than in London. Gripped by
regeneration, and now Olympic fever, the sky's the limit, with
blockbuster proposals that will soon dwarf even the Gherkin. The London
Plan beams that the mayor wishes to see many more tall buildings. Lord
Rogers advocates building a new high-density city the size of Leeds for
Thames Gateway.

Even world
heritage sites are not exempt. Looking at the impact of Canary Wharf on
Greenwich now, could anyone have really cared 20 years ago? So-called
affordable as well as luxury flats are being stuffed into schemes
festooned with tiny balconies and no safe children's playspace.
Resources directed towards 'flagship' projects act as a drain on
low-key, community-based ones. If we believe that conserving cultural
heritage is the sustainable approach, are we doing enough to advance it?

More down to
earth, where we aim to deliver effective regeneration in an historic
town, are we successfully focusing on conservation-led measures as the
delivery vehicles, rather than on development-led measures that expose
conflicts? Can conserving a place ensure a healthy future in economic,
environmental, capacity and sustainability terms? Can regeneration
efforts embrace cultural values without sacrificing practical ones?

Government
policy defines conservation areas in terms of preservation or
enhancement. As much as one would like to put proactive enhancement at
the top of the agenda, the reality is that coalface planning officers
have to make day-to-day judgments about the applications that come
before them. The effect of advice in PPG 15,

14

CONTEXT91 : SEPTEMBER2005

take
ownership of a robust working characterisation. We suggested that the
study should be formed of three parts: defining character, urban design
and building assessment. The first would provide the understanding of
why Hastings was special; the second a picture of how streets,
terraces, squares, plot sizes, topography and settings interacted and
were often degraded; the third would provide a reasonably objective
system for evaluating existing or new buildings against the unique
range of locally distinctive characteristics that we would identify.
This third part, which would have to be invented, was given the working
title of the matrix.

When anyone
proposes a system for doing anything it invariably arouses suspicion.
First, that it may be all right in theory but is likely to be imperfect
in practice, and will not cope with variation or complexity. Second,
that it is just another self-promoting device, a paint-by-numbers kit
for chimpanzees. Third, that it is not really objective at all,
therefore flawed and bound to fail. But what if we were to come up with
a method in which any measurement was not only secondary to judgment,
but also reliant on a carefully structured, defensible set of relative
values grown from the characteristics of the place itself - in effect
applying conservation plan techniques to an entire town?

This
approach involves scoring buildings, proposed or existing, against a
set of elemental characteristics, identified in a comprehensive audit.
Naturally, both the audit and the characteristics would need to be
reliable, or the chances of successfully defending any challenge to a
building evaluation would be weakened. To demonstrate that the process
was sound, we would have to score every key building, as agreed with
the client team, against the criteria (13 of them in this case) which
had emerged from the audit and which the client accepted as
representing the features that make Hastings special. This system can
help any historic area to retain its significance.

Tools
intended for practical, everyday application over a period of time
should possess ease of understanding, ease of application,
effectiveness and longevity.

understanding
is more likely if it builds on a proven knowledge base. For historic
areas, the most widely accepted knowledge base is the English Heritage
advice as set out in Conservation Area Practice (1993)
and Conservation Area Appraisals (1995), soon to
be replaced by Understanding Place. These set out
basic criteria for defining the special interest of an area and include
a checklist for determining whether individual unlisted buildings make
a positive contribution. The appraisal would then form a sound basis
for action, which could include enhancement, new buildings and
regeneration projects.

However, in
many authorities the basic appraisals, let alone a set of coordinated
strategies, have not been undertaken. Instead, major building projects,
typically with large commercial elements, are identified as the primary
engine of regeneration, with comparatively few, typically public
resources allocated to conservation projects. Like so many mini-Canary
Wharfs, the

commercial
projects take on identities, absorb urban capacity, and overwhelm the
character and still neglected potential of the existing fabric.

Application
requires a clear, simple methodology which can take its place in the
development control process. Not an idiot's guide - training,
experience, thought and fine judgment are still required - but a
process that can be applied without having to go back to basics each
time. Effectiveness means achieving practical results. Being understood
and acceptable to most applicants, adopted at an early stage in the
planning process, presentable through decision reports and defensible
in appeals are essential attributes. Longevity simply means having a
system that stands the test of time and is not just a novelty or
fashion.

This project
presented the twin challenges: first, characterising and reviewing the
designations of several distinct areas within the centre of Hastings,
using the English Heritage appraisal process augmented by Rob Cowan's
urban design analysis; second, using the elements of characterisation
as a standard against which the ability of buildings to contribute to
reinforce special interest could be measured.

We looked at
12 distinct areas, each one part of a continuous development history
that was set out at the beginning. A great deal of time was spent
walking the course, photographing and evaluating rather than
describing. A number of maps would graphically depict characteristics
and issues. Once all the facts were drawn together and analysed, a
definitive set of characteristics could be distilled. These were then
discussed with the client team and the scoring thresholds considered.

What score
would a building need to fall within the positive, neutral or
negative category? We simply divided the total number of
13 characteristics by three. Above nine would be classed as positive;
five to nine would be neutral; and below five negative. At the end of
the exercise anyone in a position to evaluate or contribute to
decision-making should be fully able to determine the status of the
building or proposal, and understand how it was arrived at.

The most
important message to get across is that the matrix will be different in
each case. In Hastings, for example, the predominant facing material is
stucco, where in another place it could be stone masonry, or red brick,
or cob. Also one characteristic, age, which does not apply to new
buildings, has to be excluded. Characteristics need to be scaled
towards fine grain, as might be appropriate in an ancient rural
village, or broad brush, for a large town or mixed urban setting.

This is not
a substitute for accepted techniques, but an augmentation. We think it
is potentially most useful where there is pressure for change, hence
the particular application where regeneration is being sought.

Recent
client feedback indicates that, while opportunities to implement the
findings of the characterisation are progressing and will inform
policies in the next local plan review, major planning applications
expected in the near future, will invoke the use of the matrix in their
evaluation.

Jack
Warshaw, principal of Conservation Architecture & Planning,
works with historic and new buildings and historic environments in the
UK and overseas.